This weekend’s preview of Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence shares an episode from college at the height of the evangelical revivals of the 1970s. My friends and I had read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship and felt compelled to take Jesus’ lordship seriously.
What does it mean when Christians call Jesus “Lord”?
This sneak peek is from a longer section on the conflicting ideas of “lordship” in Christian practice and how it is a much harder, and more daunting invitation than it seems. The chapter travels from a college Bible study through the street ministry (story below) to impoverished villages in Mexico and a kitchen in an old house in the Netherlands before ending with a political surprise — all in a quest to know Jesus as Lord. Along the way, I learned “Jesus as Lord” was much more than I knew.
JESUS GIRL
From Freeing Jesus, (HarperOne) pp. 124-127.
c. Diana Butler Bass, 2021
During my sophomore year, autumn of 1978, a revival broke out at the Christian college I attended inspired by these words of Jesus:
Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” (Luke 9:23–24).
“What would it look like,” my friend Jimmy asked me as we walked to class one day, “if we picked up the cross every day? If we died to self? If Jesus was Lord of all?”
I did not know.
*****
Jimmy and I might not have known, but a group of us realized we would not know until we tried to put it into action. We started a street ministry intended to serve people the way we imagined Jesus might. Santa Barbara had a large homeless population, and many people lived under bridges, on benches, at the beach, and in parks and plazas. Each weekend, our idealistic band, dressed in clothes we had bought at a thrift store — in order to “identify” with the street people — and walked about in the city’s less affluent neighborhoods. We fed people, sat and talked, and took “the poor” to shelters or hospitals as needed. We had no motives to make converts, no tracts to pass out. Instead, we wanted to do what we thought Jesus demanded of us —serve those at the margins of society, following the call of our Master.
We met and befriended a godly and boisterous Black woman named Queenie, who ran a café on lower State Street. We were never quite sure how she made any money, as she gave away more coffee and sandwiches than she ever seemed to sell. When we came in, she would shout, “Praise Jesus!” She let us host Bible studies at her tables and play Christian music to entertain her customers; in return, we often did her dishes and cleaned her floors. Queenie’s became the hub of our radical Christian community, and she taught us what she knew of both the Bible and the streets. Under her guidance, we got braver and learned everything from how to get someone who had overdosed to the local rehab to the art of protesting against real-estate developers who were trying to close her café down.
The men in our group thought it was a bad idea for their sisters in Christ — like me — to haunt the mean streets of Santa Barbara. Except for one thing. We were allowed to minister to other women, and that meant those whom we politely called “ladies of the evening.” None of us would have ever thought of referring to these women as “sex workers,” for the word “sex” was generally avoided, and it would have appalled us to think of what they did as “work.” They were tragic women, victims of men’s lust, who, we believed, like Mary Magdalene would jump at the chance to be saved when introduced to Jesus.
One night, I was standing on a corner with some of the ladies when a police van pulled up. I do not remember who my ministry teammate was that evening, but when I looked around, I realized she was gone. It was just the women from the streets and me. The police rounded us up and opened the door of the paddy wagon, when it suddenly dawned on me that I was going to be arrested with everyone else. My heart skipped a beat: I was going to jail. Jesus went to jail. Paul went to jail. Was this what it meant to die to self? To pick up the cross? I wondered how I would explain this to my parents.
Just as I was considering the cost of this particular disciple- ship, one of the women spoke up. “She’s not one of us, fellas,” she said as she pushed me away from the back of the van. “Leave her be. She’s a Jesus girl.”
The cops did as directed, driving off with the women and abandoning me on the street corner with passersby who had watched the whole episode. I walked back to Queenie’s.
She’s not one of us. She’s a Jesus girl.
I felt strangely conflicted. No jail. But maybe this radical Christian thing was not for me. This going to the root of things, this lordship business, scared me, the Jesus girl. Jesus hung out with sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes. He would have gotten in the van, even if someone tried to push him away. Some people would have said I made the right choice to stay on the street corner while the others were rounded up. But it made me feel terrible, sending women off to the police station while I was safe, and I remembered the words of judgment uttered by Jesus: “I was in prison and you visited me” (Matt. 25:36). I had failed Jesus and wasn’t sure what to do. And I felt all alone.
Over the next several weekends, I’ll share sneak peeks of my forthcoming book here at The Cottage. Of course, there will continue to be the regular essays on faith and what’s going on in the world and in the news more generally (usually on Monday or Tuesday). But I’m pleased to invite you into an early look at Freeing Jesus — a book I hope will inspire new questions about what it might mean to follow Jesus in these fraught days.
INSPIRATION
Lord of morning, light of day,
Sacred color-kindling Sun,
We salute thee in the way —
Roadside pilgrims robed in dun.
For thou are a pilgrim too,
Overlord of all our band;
In they fervor we renew
Quests we do not understand.
— Bliss Carman
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
― Deitrich Bonhoeffer
The message (Jesus) proclaimed not only called for change in individual hearts but also demanded sweeping and comprehensive changes in the political, social, and economic structures in his setting: colonized Israel. An important goal of his ministry was to radically change the distribution of authority and power, goods and resources, so all people — particularly the little people, or ‘the least of these,’ as Jesus called them — might have lives free of political repression, enforced hunger and poverty, and undue insecurity.
— Obery Hendricks
UPCOMING EVENTS
March 4:
WELL SAID SPEAKER SERIES
March 11 - April 22:
FRANCISCAN CENTER: Guided Conversation on Grateful
April 26:
BREATHE: Making sense of the past year, finding hope for the future
This one-day virtual gathering is for women in spiritual leadership (trans women and non-binary persons who are comfortable in women-focussed events are - of course - welcome) – clergy, spiritual directors, lay leaders, authors and poets, and teachers – to catch our breath after this difficult and challenging year.
Breathe is an opportunity for you to be encouraged, affirmed, and to connect with others from across the country. Together, we'll find new grounding for the final stretch of the pandemic. The gathering will allow time to reflect on what's happened to us in the last year, and open our hearts toward a new phase in our lives and ministries.
For booking events, including events based on Freeing Jesus, please contact Chaffee Management. We’re booking virtual events through spring 2021, and blended and in-real-life events for later 2021 and into 2022.
For podcast, media, review, and interview inquires and availability regarding the book launch, please email Dan Rovzar at HarperCollins publicity: Dan.Rovzar@harpercollins.com.